Did the Son of God assume human nature into the unity of his person? We affirm against the Socinians
I. In the Christian religion there are two questions above all others which are difficult. The first concerns the unity of the three persons in the one essence in the Trinity; the other concerns the union of the two natures in the one person in the incarnation. Now although they mutually differ (because in the first the discussion concerns the unity of essence and the Trinity of persons, while the other concerns the unity of the person and the diversity of natures), still the one greatly assists in the understanding of the other. For as in the Trinity, the unity of essence does not hinder the persons from being distinct from each other and their properties and operations from being incommunicable, so the union of natures in the person of Christ does not prevent both the natures and their properties from remaining unconfounded and distinct.
Statement of the question.
II. The question does not concern the truth of the human nature because that is acknowledged on both sides. Nor does it concern the truth of the nature or of the hypostasis of the Son of God because we have considered it elsewhere. Rather the question concerns the truth of the incarnation—whether the Son of God assumed the human nature into unity of person, so that the same one who was the Son of God became by the hypostatical union the Son of Man. This the orthodox assert; the Socinians deny.
III. The question does not concern the physical and essential union of two things to constitute one third nature (as the soul is united to the body to constitute a man). Not concerning the schetic (schetikē) and relative union consisting in the union of souls and the consent of wills, such as the union of friends. Not concerning a parastatic (parastatikē) union by mere standing by, such as that of the angels with bodies assumed. Not concerning an efficient (drastikē) union, as to general efficacy and sustentation by which all things are in God and we move, live and have our being in him (Acts 17:28). Not concerning the mystical union and grace of believers with Christ. Not of the substantial (ousiōdei) or essential union of the persons of the Trinity in one essence. Rather the question concerns the hypostatical union by the assumption of human nature into unity of the person of the Logos (Logou). This is so called, both in respect of form (because it is in the person of the Logos [Logou]) and in respect of the term (because it is terminated on it). Thus the union is personal, but not of persons, as the union of natures, but not natural. If at any time it is called physikē (natural union) by the fathers (as by Cyril, “Anathema 3,” Explicatio Duodecim Capitum [PG 76:299]) it must be understood in a sound sense, so that not so much the relation of union is regarded as the extremes of union (for the extremes united are two natures).
IV. This union can be viewed either in respect of the principle or in respect of the terminus. In the former sense, it is attributed to the whole Trinity, by the power of which such union is made (to wit, by a transient action of God by which he united in the person of the Logos, the humanity of Christ). In the latter, it belongs to the Logos alone because it is terminated on him. Although the person of the Logos may well be said to have been incarnate, yet the Trinity itself may not because the incarnation is not terminated on the divine nature absolutely, but on the person of the Logos relatively.
V. By this union, therefore, nothing else is designated than the intimate and perpetual conjunction of the two natures—the divine and human—in the unity of person. By this, the human nature (which was destitute of proper personality and was without subsistence [anypostatos] because otherwise it would have been a person) was assumed into the person of the Logos (Logou), and either conjoined with or adjoined to him in unity of person, so that now it is substantial with the Logos (enypostatos Logō). For it is sustained by him, not by a general sustentation (by which all creatures are sustained by God), but by a special and personal sustentation, inasmuch as it is united into one person with the Word. Now although the human nature may rightly be said to be substantial with the Logos (enypostatos Logō) (because it was assumed into the unity of the person and is sustained by it), yet less accurately is it said to subsist with the subsistence of the Logos (Logou) because then the human nature would be a divine person.
VI. The human nature in the God-man (theanthrōpō) can be called both its adjunct and part in a sound sense. Adjunct, not that it is adjoined or adheres to it as the accident to the subject or a garment to the body, but because to the Logos (Logō) (existing without flesh from eternity) it was conjoined in time in the unity of person. It may be called a part also analogically and in a wider sense; not as if the person of Christ is compounded or consists of two incomplete natures, as parts properly so called (which would savor of imperfection); but because it subsists not in one, but in two natures and agrees with both; not accidentally, but essentially. Hence it is said to be composed (syntheton) rather of number than of parts because in it many things numerically (to wit, the human and divine natures) exist. If it is called the instrument of the Logos (Logou) by some, this is not done in respect of existence, but of operation because he assumed it on account of operation and works by it.
VII. This assumption, therefore, was not made for the completion of the person of the Logos (Logou) as such reduplicatively, since it was most perfect in itself from eternity, but of the person of the God-man (theanthrōpou) or Mediator specifically; not to the acquisition of new perfection in respect to the Son of God intrinsically, but to the communication of perfection with respect to us and to working extrinsically, in order that by that nature he might perform what was necessary for our redemption.
VIII. When the person of the God-man (theanthrōpou) is called by the fathers compound (hen prosōpon syntheton ek theotētos epouraniou, kai anthrōpinēs sarkos, as the fathers of the Synod of Antioch+ speak against Paul of Samosata), there is not meant a composition properly so called (as if the human and divine natures were as incomplete parts for the constitution of the whole). Rather an improper is meant inasmuch as that is said to be compounded which consists of different things; not physical of these (i.e., of essential parts) as man of soul and body; not accidental with these (i.e., of subject and accident), but hyperphysical and extraordinary (i.e., of this nature taken to this individual, incommunicable subsistence in which one of the extremes fills up and perfects, the other is filled up and perfected). Nor is it absurd that the divine nature in this way comes into composition with another because this is not after the manner of a part properly so called, but after the manner of assuming another nature. Thus it may be said to compose something with another not essentially, but personally; nor for its intrinsic perfection, but only for its extrinsic operation.
IX. Although we recognize in Christ a twofold union, one personal (of the two natures, the divine and human in one person), the other natural (of the soul and body in the one human nature), still falsely are we charged by some Lutherans with holding a twofold hypostatical union in Christ and thus favoring Nestorianism. These two unions differ from each other in many ways: (1) in kind, because the one is physical, the other is hyperphysical; (2) in the terminus, because there is a nature, here a person; (3) in the subject, which there is the human nature alone, here both natures; (4) in the adjuncts, because that is separable and was dissolved by the death of Christ, while this is inseparable—what the Logos (Logos) has once assumed he never laid aside.
X. The question therefore returns to this—Was it a true incarnation? That is, did the Son of God, the second person of the holy Trinity, join together with himself in unity of person, not a person, but a human nature; not by conversion and transmutation, but by assumption and sustentation, so that the Son of God was made the Son of man and our Mediator and is truly God-man (theanthrōpos)? The Socinians deny this. They teach that in Christ there is only one nature; that he is man not only true, but also mere and simple, whose whole prerogative, consequently, was in the excellency of his attributes and office, not of his nature. On the other hand, we affirm it.
The hypostatical union is proved: (1) from Jn. 1:14.
XI. The reasons are first, “the word was made flesh” (Jn. 1:14), where distinct mention is made: (a) of two extremes (to wit, the Word, which is shown to be a divine person from what goes before, where he is said to be God and with God and to have made all things [vv. 1, 3], and flesh, which denotes synechdochically the human nature); (b) of the union by which they were mutually joined together; not as by conversion and change (of which the immutable God is incapable), but by assumption, by which (remaining the same in himself, to wit, true and eternal God) he was made what he was not before by partaking of flesh and blood, according to that well-known phrase—“I am what I was” (to wit, God) “nor was I what I am” (namely man) “now I am called both” (to wit, God and man).
XII. Nor can the impious gloss of Socinus be allowed by which (about to corrupt this most lucid passage) he maintains that the verb egeneto is to be translated not by “was made” (as by the common consent of interpreters it is usually translated), but by “was” (as it is used elsewhere in this sense in Jn. 1:6—egeneto, “there was a man sent from God,” and Lk. 24:19). The gloss is openly contrary to the text, where John clearly distinguishes the being of the Logos (tou Logou) from the being of the flesh; that which was Christ from eternity from that which he was made in time. The former he signifies by the verb ēn (en archē ēn ho Logos, “in the beginning was the Word,” v. 1), without any indication of beginning or of origin. Even in the beginning, he was the Word, he was with God and he was God. The latter he denotes by the verb egeneto, which designates a beginning and origin because in the fulness of time God sent forth his Son genomenon (made of a woman, Gal. 4:4), who is elsewhere said to be made (genomenos) of the seed of David (Rom. 1:3). Nor if the verb ginomai is elsewhere taken in a different sense, does it follow that it cannot be used in this sense here (which the connection imperatively demands). To no purpose does he add that by the word “flesh,” the humble and abject condition of Christ is denoted. For thus are connoted his infirmities that the human nature may always be supposed (which is the subject of them), so that the word may be said to be made flesh (i.e., a weak and poor man like unto us in all things).
2. From Phil. 2:6, 7.
XIII. Second, “Christ, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man” (Phil. 2:6–8*). Here various arguments lie concealed, not only for proving the divinity of Christ (as was shown in Volume I, Topic III, Question 28, Section 2), but also the truth of the incarnation. (a) Express mention is made of the two natures of Christ—the divine (both by the form of God [morphēn Theou], which he is said to have had, and by equality with God, which he did not think it robbery to attribute to himself); the human (by the form of a servant [morphēn doulou] which he took on and the likeness of a man, in which he was made). (b) Of the union of these two natures in one person—the same one who was in the form of God is said to have taken on him the form of a servant and to have been made in the likeness of men; not only to have appeared in the form of a servant, as formerly under the Old Testament he appeared in the form of a man by clothing himself for a time with this form, as with a garment or symbol of his presence, but that he took on that form to indicate the true assumption of our nature into personal union. Here also belongs the verb ekenōse, which is not to be taken simply and absolutely (as if he ceased to be God or was reduced to a nonentity, which is impious even to think concerning the eternal and unchangeable God), but in respect of state and comparatively because he concealed the divine glory under the veil of flesh and as it were laid it aside; not by putting off what he was, but by assuming what he was not. And as the verb ekenōse properly implies he emptied himself out or seemed to be emptied of all that glory which is rightly called the fulness of the deity, that he might take on our vile nature (which is mere vanity and, as it were, nothing with respect to God, and in it the most abject and miserable condition of a slave), and so from almighty to weak, from most rich to poor (2 Cor. 8:9), from the Lord of angels the servant of men, from a most glorious and happy state, which he enjoyed with the Father, he entered into a most sad condition, in which he was made a worm, no man, a reproach of men and despised of the people (Ps. 22:6), without form, without comeliness (Is. 53:2), and cut off and, as it were, brought to nothing, according to the prediction in Dan. 9:26.
XIV. Our adversaries labor in vain to escape the force of this passage by saying: (1) “morphēn Theou does not designate the divine nature (which cannot be emptied), but the excellence and dignity of the human nature, seen in the working of miracles and in those rays which shone out from under the veil of flesh.” First, in this sense Christ would have taken on the form of a servant before he had been in the form of God. This is directly contrary to Paul, who asserts that Christ had already subsisted in the form of God when he received the form of a servant and existing as such he had emptied himself, the form of a servant having been assumed. Second, the form of God here is “to be equal with God,” which cannot be said of any excellence of angelic nature, much less of the human nature. The apostles wrought stupendous miracles; yea, greater than even those of Christ (Jn. 14:12) and yet they cannot on that account be called equal with God. Third, God cannot be emptied by a diminution of glory, but by its concealment (occultationem); not in the sight of God intrinsically, but extrinsically as to men. (2) With no better success do they hold that “the form of a servant does not connote the human nature of Christ, but only the most abject condition of Christ because having received the form of a servant he is said only to be made after the likeness of a man, i.e., as if a man, not however that he was made a man simply.” Things that ought to be connected are separated, for the servile condition of Christ (designated by the form of a servant), does not exclude the truth of the human nature, but supposes it because he could not enter that servile state except in a human nature. If he is said to have been made in the likeness of men, the specific identity of the human nature is not denied, but only the numerical. Otherwise Seth would not have been of the same nature with Adam because he is said to have been made in his likeness (Gen. 5:3).
3. From 1 Tim. 3:16.
XV. Third, “God was manifested in the flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16), where two natures (a divine and a human) are connoted coalescing in the person of Christ by his incarnation. Otherwise the same Christ could not be called God and flesh; “to be manifested in the flesh” is the same as elsewhere “to be made partaker of flesh and blood” (Heb. 2:14); “to be made flesh” (Jn. 1:14); and “to come in the flesh” (en sarki erchesthai, 2 Jn. 7). God is said to be manifested not essentially (ousiōdōs) but hypostatically (hypostatikōs) (to wit, in the person of the Logos [Logou]), not by some sign of his presence given to men (as in the burning bush [Ex. 3:2] or in the pillar of cloud and fire [1 K. 8:10, 11]), nor by a human form assumed only for a time (as in Gen. 18), or by shadowy phantoms (phasmata), in which way false gods rendered themselves visible, “clothing themselves with bodies” (as Servius says, In Vergilii Carmina Commentarii [1961], 2:157 [on Aeneid, 7:416]), heautous eidopoiountes eis anthrōpous, as Heliodorus expresses it (Les Ethiopiques, 3.13.1 [trans. J. Maillon, 1960], 1:115). But he is manifested “in flesh” (i.e., in mortal and miserable human nature). He does not say simply that the divinity in the abstract, but “God” (Theon) in the concrete was manifested (to wit, the person of the Logos [Logou] was manifested because incarnation is not of the divine nature absolutely, but of a person).
4. From Rom. 1:3, etc.
XVI. Fourth, from the passages where two natures in the person of Christ are clearly set forth: “He was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead” (Rom. 1:3, 4). The limitation according to the flesh and Spirit denotes his two natures, the one according to which he was made of the seed of David (viz., the human), the other divine according to the Spirit of holiness, by which he was declared to be the Son of God by his resurrection (the indubitable argument of his divinity). Nor if “according to the flesh” is elsewhere taken in a sense a little different, either for corruption (as to “walk according to the flesh,” Rom. 8:1) or for external form which strikes the senses (as “to judge according to the flesh,” Jn. 8:15), does it follow that it cannot here signify Christ as to the human nature. For both the seed of David and the antithesis of the Spirit necessarily demand this. Nor if the same man can be said to be born according to the flesh and according to the Spirit (as is said of Isaac, Gal. 4:29), ought it forthwith to be denied that elsewhere a twofold nature is designated. It is one thing for a limitation to be added to an agent as to mode of generation (in which sense Isaac is said to have been begotten “according to the Spirit,” although he was begotten according to the flesh, because in virtue of a special promise he was brought forth in a supernatural manner); it is another for it to be added to the subject as to the natures of which it is constituted (as in this passage).
XVII. The same limitation is added when it is said, “of the fathers, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, God blessed forever” (Rom. 9:5). Here the human nature is designated, according to which he must spring from the fathers, and the divine, according to which he is God blessed forever. So in 1 Pet. 3:18, it is said “being put to death in the flesh” (i.e., having suffered in the human nature), but “quickened by the Spirit” (i.e., raised up by the divinity, by that eternal Spirit by which he offered himself to God, Heb. 9:14). Thus, “God” is said “to have purchased his church with his own blood” (Acts 20:28). Here the words “his own” (idiou) show that the nature which suffered truly belongs to that divine person which is said to have purchased the church.
XVIII. Although the human nature of Christ is a first substance (intelligent and perfect in substantial being), it is not at once a person because it does not possess incommunicability and proper subsistence (as the soul separated is a singular intelligent substance, yet not a person because it is a partial being, incomplete, which does not subsist, but must be adjoined to another). The want, however, of proper personality does not derogate from the truth and perfection of the human nature of Christ because we measure the truth of human nature from the matter, form and essential properties, not from the personality. Hence the definition of a nature differs from that of a subsistence. Finally, personality is neither an integral nor essential part of a nature, but as it were the terminus. Because it shares in an uncreated subsistence, on that account it is far more perfect than if it subsisted by itself separated from the Word.
XIX. The Son of God did not assume man as one entire, incommunicable subsistence, but a human nature (i.e., man specifically so called). And as often as Christ is called a man or the Son of man in the Scripture, it is a name not of the nature, but of the person denominated from the other nature.
XX. God and man are either regarded in the abstract (to denote the divinity and the humanity) or in the concrete (to designate the person, which is God and man at the same time). In the latter sense, they are not disparate, but diverse (which can belong to one subject). But in the former sense, they are truly disparate (which can never be predicated of each other in turn). Although it may properly be said the man is God, improperly, however, would it be said—the humanity is divinity. Now although such disparates cannot be one in number ordinarily and physically, nothing hinders this from being held theologically and in that extraordinary God-man (theanthrōpou).
XXI. We do not think much labor should be devoted to explain the nature and representation of the propositions used in this mystery, such as “God is man” and “man is God.” Nothing similar occurs in the universe and in this sense they are well called “unusual”; not disparates, by which a disparate is predicated of a disparate (because no person is divided from itself); but identical where one thing is predicated of itself not formally. In this sense, they can be called synonymical by a logical consideration and tropical by a rhetorical consideration. Synonymical because subject and predicate are taken concretely for the unity of person; so that the sense is: The person who is God, is also man. Thus the lowest species is predicated of an extraordinary and singular individual. Tropical because the subject and predicate indeed designate the same person, but in different respects (kat’ allo kai allo) (i.e., as to deity and humanity). This tropical predication, therefore (“God is man” and “man is God”), is not to be resolved into this proper—The deity is God; the humanity is man—as the adversaries falsely object. Rather it is to be resolved into this: Christ (God according to the deity) is man according to humanity (and in turn). As God is said to have suffered (i.e., Christ who is God according to the deity suffered) not in the deity, but in the flesh.
XXII. The communication of the hypostasis of the Logos (Logou) made flesh can be understood in three ways: either effectively (as if it effected in the flesh another hypostasis); or transitively, so that it may be maintained that he formally transferred his own hypostasis into the flesh; or assumptively because he assumed flesh into the same hypostasis and united it to himself. In the former way, the phrase is heterodox and Nestorian. For if he had formed another hypostasis, there would be two hypostases and consequently two persons. The second is no less heretical because thus the flesh would formally subsist in the subsistence of the Logos (Logou) and thus be truly a person. Besides a personal property is simply incommunicable. But in the third sense, it is true and orthodox (viz., the Logos [Logos] may be said to have communicated his own subsistence to the flesh by assuming it into the unity of his own hypostasis so that the flesh is not a hypostasis, but real [enypostatos]; not existing separately, but sustained in the Logos [Logō] [as an instrument and adjunct personally joined to it] in order to accomplish the work of our redemption).
XXIII. Contradictories cannot agree in the same subject, in the same manner and in the same respect. But to be dependent and independent, finite and infinite belong to Christ in different respects (kat’ allo kai allo): the former with respect to the human nature; the latter with respect to the divine.
XXIV. A local infinite distance can hinder the union of two natures, but not an infinite distance of perfection (such as exists between the human and divine natures).
XXV. If the Son of God assumed our nature, nothing on that account was added to him intrinsically to perfect his nature (which already had in an eminent degree all the perfection of humanity). Only extrinsically was something adjoined to it for the work of redemption.
XXVI. He who is made what he was not before transmutatively, is changed; but not forthwith, he who is only made what he was not assumptively. Therefore, the change (if there were any here) is in the human nature (which in an extraordinary and special manner is sustained by the Logos [Logō]), not in the person of the Logos (Logou) (who, always existing the same, united it to himself).
Turretin, Francis. 1992–1997. Institutes of Elenctic Theology. Edited by James T. Dennison Jr. Translated by George Musgrave Giger. Vol. 2. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing.